This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
He was already president for 4 years and nothing happened.
I do not agree that Trump is a fascist, but I always found the argument of "nothing happened last time" to be super weak. Trump himself repeats that he had people in his administration constantly get in his way and prevent him from doing what he wanted to do. This is something both Trump loyalists and #resist people both agree on.
Not that I disagree, but I think the argument is more like "last time you all screamed he was orange Hitler, and nothing happened. Why should we believe you this time?"
There's a current amongst the left that makes the most recent right wing candidate out to be literally the biggest threat to democracy ever. After a while, it becomes obvious that there isn't any information value from these statements.
"Nothing happened" is obviously false, given January 6th and the events leading up to it.
Trump made a serious effort to stay in office despite losing the 2020 election, including (definitely) assembling a riotous mob outside the Capitol in order to intimidate Pence and Congress and (based on poorly-corroborated eyewitness testimony, but not seriously challenged) meeting retired generals in the Oval Office to discuss the possibility of a military autogolpe. That isn't nothing.
The people who said that Trump was a threat to democracy were right, even though American democracy was in fact able to brush off the threat.
Out of curiosity, where would you say the appropriate place to protest would have been? There was behaviour during the election that seemed very suspicious to the layperson (the water main breaking causing poll watchers to be sent home, which was followed by votes continuing to be tallied). The attempts to get the legal system to address it seemed to be brushed off (and I'm saying 'seemed', not 'were', because you don't have to be right to protest, you just need to believe something was wrong). The people absolutely believed that the election has been stolen, and showed up for what was actually an extremely peaceful protest, especially compared to the BLM protests earlier in the year.
We've seen similar protests from left-wing sources occupying state buildings to prevent votes (unfortunately, not being American, I can't recall the specific state; I believe it was some sort of trans bathroom bill that caused a Texan legislature to have to reconvene later, but I'm open to corrections if someone can find it). The same people who complain about Trump being a unique threat to democracy are silent on those protests.
There really isn't any set of events that could've led to the January 6 protests having Trump installed in office, short of convincing everyone that the vote had been stolen (in which case, yes, they would've been right to overturn it).
Given that the Constitution requires States to choose their electors and Congress to count the votes of the electors chosen by the States, the appropriate place to protest a choice of electors which does not reflect the popular vote would whatever the usual and customary place for large-scale protest is in the relevant State capital. Given US norms (which are not substantially different to other advanced democracies) I wouldn't have said that protesting on the Capitol lawn was inappropriate, but doing so while openly armed, carrying signs saying "Hang Mike Pence" and erecting a gallows crosses a line even if the building wasn't stormed. (FWIW, I would consider open-carrying at a political process to be per se a threat against government officials and therefore prosecutable, but I am aware that American gun culture sees things differently).
The ignorance of Trump's supporters is relevant to their culpability, but not his. Given his access to information, if Trump believed the things he was saying about how he won the election then he is sufficiently delusional that Pence should have invoked the 25th.
Eastman wrote a memo telling Pence how to install Trump. I don't know what would have happened if Pence had followed the instructions in the memo and declared Trump elected, but it wouldn't have been good whoever ended up being inaugurated. There were at least five obvious ways that the January 6 protests could have "worked" in the sense of using political violence to cause an unnecessary constitutional crisis, although only the first two seem plausible to me:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link